SESP Faculty

Shirin Vossoughi

Faculty Profile

shirin.vossoughi@northwestern.edu

As a learning scientist and ethnographer of education, I am concerned with understanding the social, cultural, political and ethical dimensions of human learning in ways that contribute to projects of educational justice. To this end, I study the forms of pedagogical mediation, thinking, relationality and development that take shape within settings that cultivate transformative learning, particularly with migrant, immigrant, diasporic and other marginalized and minoritized youth. My work seeks to understand micro-interactional processes of human learning as tied to broader forms of social change, and the potentials of learning environments as lived arguments for the possible.

This program of research requires conceptual, methodological and artistic tools that treat educational injustice as a social and historical problem, illuminate the empirical texture of expansive pedagogies, and construct a wider view of learning as tied to students’ life-worlds and cultural ways of knowing. I draw on ethnographic and interactional approaches to examine the specific qualities of learning environments that support young people to develop complex forms of disciplinary practice while questioning and expanding disciplinary boundaries, often through learning interactions that embrace their full personhood. My current projects look closely at student and teacher learning in the context of reading, writing and STEAM domains, with a particular focus on the power and complexities of political education. I have taught in a range of educational settings and take a collaborative approach to research and design, partnering with teachers, families, and students to study the conditions that foster educational dignity and possibility.

• 2022 – Honorable Mention, Alan C. Purves Award, National Council of Teachers of English 
• 2022 – Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence Award, Northwestern University 
• 2021 – Outstanding Professor Award, Northwestern University School of Education & Social Policy 
• 2021 – Paper of the Year Award, Journal of the Learning Sciences 
• 2021 – Early Career Award, International Society of the Learning Sciences
• 2021 – Outstanding Reviewer Award, Journal of the Learning Sciences
• 2021 – Outstanding Reviewer Award, American Educational Research Journal
• 2020 – Ver Steeg Award for Excellence in Working with Graduate Students, Northwestern University Graduate Division 
• 2019 – AERA Division C Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies
• 2018 – Spencer Foundation Scholar in Residence
• 2016 – Outstanding Professor Award, Northwestern University School of Education & Social Policy
• 2016 – NAEd/Spencer Post Doctoral Fellowship
• 2013 – Presidential Early Career Fellowship, Council of Anthropology and Education, American Anthropological Association
• 2010 – AERA Division K Inaugural Award for Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education

Vossoughi, S. (2022). Race, Parenting and Identity in the Iranian Diaspora: Tracing Intergenerational Dialogues and CoDesign. Journal of Family Diversity in Education. 4(2), 160-176. 2022_Vossoughi_Race, Parenting & Identity in the Iranian Diaspora_JFDE. 

Vossoughi, S., Nzinga, K., Berry, A., Irvine, F., Mayorga, C. & Gashaw, M. (2021). Writing as a Social Act: The Feedback Relation as a Context for Political and Ethical Becoming. Research in the Teaching of English. 56(2), 200-222. RTE_Volume_56_Issue_2_Writing as a Social Act_ The Feedback Relation as a Context for Political and Ethical Becoming.v1  

Vossoughi, S., Escudé, M., Kitundu, W., & Espinoza, M. L. (2021). Pedagogical “Hands and Eyes”: Embodied Learning and the Genesis of Ethical Perception. Anthropology & Education Quarterly. 2021_Vossoughi Escudé Kitundu Espinoza_Pedagogical Hands and Eyes_Anthropology and Education Quarterly 

Destin, Mesmin, R. Josiah Rosario, and Shirin Vossoughi (2021). “Elevating the Objectives of Higher Education to Effectively Serve Students From Diverse Socioeconomic Backgrounds.” Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 8.1, 59-66.

Vossoughi, S. (2021). Jan Hawkins Award Lecture: Elsewhere worlds, poetics and the science of human learning. Jan Hawkins Lecture_Shirin Vossoughi_2021

Vossoughi, S., Davis, N., Jackson, A., Echevarria, R., Muñoz, A. & Escudé, M. (January, 2021). Beyond the Binary of Adult Versus Child Centered Learning Pedagogies of Joint Activity in the Context of Making   Cognition & Instruction.

Espinoza, M., Vossoughi, S., Rose, M. & Poza, L. (July, 2020). Matters of participation: notes on the study of dignity and learning. Mind, Culture & Activity .
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McDermott, R. & Vossoughi, S. (May, 2020). The culture of poverty, again. Diaspora, Indigenous & Minority Education: 60-69.
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Beckham, K. & Vossoughi, S. (May, 2020). From the poverty of culture to the power of politics: the evolution of W.E.B. Du Bois. Diaspora, Indigenous & Minority Education: 75-86.
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Davis, N., Vossoughi, S. & Smith, J. F. (February, 2020). Learning from below: A micro-ethnographic account of children’s self-determination as sociopolitical and intellectual action. Learning, Culture & Social Interaction.
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Vossoughi, S., Jackson, A., Chen, S., Roldan, W. & Escude, M. (January, 2020). Embodied Pathways and Ethical Trails: Studying Learning in and through Relational Histories . Journal of the Learning Sciences .
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Warren, B., Vossoughi, S., Rosebery, A., Bang, B. & Taylor, E. (2020). Multiple Way of Knowing: Re-imagining Disciplinary Learning in Nasir, S.N., Lee, C.D., Pea, R. and De Royston, M., Handbook of the Cultural Foundations of Learning (pp. 277-293). Routledge.

Vossoughi, S. & Zavala, M. (2020). The Interview as Pedagogical Encounter: Nurturing Knowledge and Relationships with Youth in Ali, A. I. & McCarty, T. , Critical Youth Research in Education (pp. 136-154). Routledge.

Sengupta-Irving, T. & Vossoughi, S. (April, 2019). Not in their name: re-interpreting discourses of STEM learning through the subjective experiences of minoritized girls. Race, Ethnicity & Education : 479-501.

Vossoughi, S. & Vakil, S. (April, 2018). Toward What Ends? A Critical Analysis of Militarism, Equity & STEM Educationin Ali, A. & Buenavista, T. , Education at War  Fordham University Press.
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Vossoughi, S. & Rodela, K. (January, 2018). Re-Writing Race, Class, and the “culture of poverty:” Ethnographic Work by Eleanor Leacock, 1959-1980. Diaspora, Indigenous & Minority Education: 1-7.
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Vossoughi, S. (April, 2017). Access and Equity in Out-of-School Learning in Peppler, K. (Ed.), The SAGE Encyclopedia of Out-of-School Learning (pp. 1-5). SAGE.
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The Politics of Learning Writing Collective (March, 2017). The Learning Sciences in a New Era of U.S. Nationalism.Cognition & Instruction : 1-12.
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Vossoughi, S. & Gutiérrez, K. (December, 2016). Critical Pedagogy and Sociocultural Theory in Esmonde, Indigo & Booker, Angela N. , Power and Privilege in the Learning Sciences  (pp. 139-161). Routledge .
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Vossoughi, S., Hooper, P. & Escudé, M. (June, 2016). Making through the lens of culture and power: Towards transformative visions for educational equity. Harvard Educational Review: 206-232.
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Bang, M. & Vossoughi, S. (May, 2016). Participatory Design Research and Educational Justice: Studying Learning and Relations within Social Change Making. Cognition & Instruction: 173-193.
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Vossoughi, S. & Escudé, M. (March, 2016). What does the Camera Communicate? An Inquiry into the Politics and Possibilities of Video Research on Learning. Anthropology & Education Quarterly .
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Vossoughi, S. & Escudé, M. (April, 2015). Grappling with Equity and Gaze. Digital Media & Learning Blog.

Cole, M. & Vossoughi, S. (February, 2015). Confronting the Home-Field Disadvantage. Mind, Culture & Activity : 78-84.
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Vossoughi, S. (January, 2015). Intellectual Respect: Envisioning Alternative Educational Possibilities. Equity Alliance Blog.

Vossoughi, S. & Gutiérrez, K. (November, 2014). Studying movement, hybridity, and change: Toward a multi-sited sensibility for research on learning across contexts and borders in Learning in and Across Contexts: Reimagining Education (pp. 603-632). NSSE: National Society for the Study of Education.
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Vossoughi, S. (October, 2014). Social analytic artifacts made concrete: A study of learning and political education.Mind, Culture and Activity: 353-373.
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Vossoughi, S. & Bevan, B. (October, 2014). Making and Tinkering: A Review of the Literature. National Research Council Committee on Out of School Time STEM: 1-55.
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Espinoza, M., & Vossoughi, S. (September, 2014). Perceiving learning anew: Social interaction, dignity and educational rights. Harvard Educational Review: 285-313.
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Booker, A., Vossoughi, S., Hooper, P. (2014). Tensions and possibilities for political work in the learning sciences.Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences.
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Vossoughi, S. & Espinoza, M. (2014). Boal’s children: Theatre for the people. Bta’arof: 50-53.
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Vossoughi, S., Escudé, M., Kong, F. & Hooper, P. (October, 2013). Tinkering, learning and equity in the after-school setting. FabLearn Conference Proceedings, Stanford University.
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Vossoughi, S. (August, 2011). Inhabiting the possible: Pedagogy & solidarity at Camp Ayandeh. Jadaliyya.

Gutiérrez, K. & Vossoughi, S. (2010). Lifting off the ground to return anew: Mediated praxis, transformative learning and social design experiments. Journal of Teacher Education : 100-117.
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